This book presents amazing quality French Impressionist art held in Japanese collections, and includes some of the major works of the Impressionist movement. At the end of the 19th century Japanese collectors began to put together Impressionist collections of outstanding quality. In the first half of the 20th century the most important Japanese collector was the industrialist Kojiro Matsukata, who was a close friend of Claude Monet. Today there are several distinguished collections that are shown in renowned public and private museums. A selection of exquisite works from these Japanese museums now returns exclusively to Europe. At the heart of the exhibition and the book are masterpieces by French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists, among them Monet, Manet, Cézanne, Gauguin, Bonnard, Pissarro, Renoir, Signac, Sisley, and van Gogh. Their paintings are complemented by a selection of works by Japanese artists from the period before 1920 that laid the foundation for modern, Westerninspired Japanese art. Together, they tell the story of the interaction and two-way artistic influence between Europe and Japan from a new perspective.